In my previous article, I gave a brief explanation about file
systems and I implied that, in general, NTFS is the right choice.
Now, I'll tell you the reasons that make NTFS more powerful than FAT
or FAT32.

NTFS is the best file system for large drives. Unlike FAT and
FAT32, performance with NTFS isn't corrupted as drive size
increases.

One of the major security features in NTFS is
encryption or, in other words, the process of disguising a message or data in such a
way as to hide its substance.

Another feature in NTFS is disk quotas. It gives you the ability to
monitor and control the amount of disk space used by each user.

Using NTFS, you can keep access control on files and folders and
support limited accounts. In FAT and FAT32, all files and folders
are accessible by all users no matter what their account type is.

Domains can be used to tweak security options while
keeping administration simple.

Compression available in NTFS enables you to compress files,
folders, or whole drives when you're running out of disk space.

Removable media (such as tapes) are made more
accessible through the Remote Storage feature.

Recovery logging helps you restore information quickly if power
failures or other system problems occur.

However, there are 2 drawbacks for NTFS. Old software might not run
on NTFS properly. Secondly, if you're going to run an earlier
version of Windows along with Windows XP, you'll need to have a FAT
or FAT32 as the start-up partition. The reason is that most earlier
versions of Windows can't access a partition with the latest version
of NTFS.

So now, my fellow readers, you should have enough knowledge
regarding file systems to know whether you want to opt for NTFS or
not. If you're interested in switching your file system to NTFS,
stay tuned for the third and last part of "File Systems Exposed" in
which I'll guide you to convert your file system to NTFS.